


Permission and Forgiveness

by NebulousMistress



Series: Let Slip the Hounds of the First Order [14]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Chiss Ascendancy (Star Wars), Gen, Mad Science Corps, Monster Armitage Hux, Planet Ilum (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:33:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29661105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NebulousMistress/pseuds/NebulousMistress
Summary: "It is better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission."A common saying among humans of the galaxy. Unfortunately it's never been true. Not among the Chiss.
Series: Let Slip the Hounds of the First Order [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1698706
Comments: 16
Kudos: 16





	1. What You Make of It

Strobing lights and alarms warred in the shaking cabin. Red and green turbolasers flashed around the ship as TT-1098 shook and swore under her breath. Her hands tapped and grabbed and pulled at the controls, trying to fly evasively in order to regain some semblance of sanity.

It wasn’t supposed to **be** like this.

The cockpit shuddered under her as she took a hit. Shields held but now the enemy knew she was there. An alarm sounded and an indicator screen showed a pair of A-Wings break off of the main group to converge on her position.

There were too many firing solutions. Too many starfighters battled it out over the planet below. She pulled up and then pushed the engines hard, diving straight down for the Star Destroyer below. 

Her two pursuers followed, the both of them fighting over who got the chance to take the killing shot. An alarm blared, warning her the A-Wings both had target locks on her.

She pulled up, skimming the armor of the Star Destroyer. One A-Wing slammed into the armor of the vast ship below, the other maintained the chase as TT-1098 dodged turbolaser emplacements.

Somehow this was worse. Now she was being fired at from two angles. Green laser bolts shot past her as she desperately tried not to fly into the red bolts fired at her from behind. She had to get out of this. She pulled up, directly into a swarm of TIEs launched into the battle from her own side.

Proximity alarms blared and her shields collapsed as she threaded the needle, flying at full speed through the gap in the TIE formation. The A-Wing behind was not so lucky, colliding with a TIE fighter in an explosion that ruptured the formation.

But she didn’t get a moment to relax as the alarm sounded again. She glanced at the readout, the unmistakable silhouette of an X-Wing visible on her rear LIDAR trace.

This day just got worse by the minute. TT-1098 was in real trouble and she knew it. She couldn’t outfly an X-Wing with her shields down. She’d have to try and face it head-on. 

An alarm warned her the X-Wing had achieved a target lock on her as she began to execute the koiogran turn. Her engines whined at the stress, heat sinks engaging as she fired blind at the thing.

Then it fired.

Everything went dark and something behind her hissed.

TT-1098 tore off her helmet and pouted in the dark. Today’s simulator run had not been what she’d hoped. They were never what she hoped. She didn’t know what it was, either. The firing controls were right there, the firing buttons at her thumbs. Her turbolasers were set to the right hand. For this simulation, her ion missiles were set to the left hand. But the ability to set a target lock mandated letting go of the flight stick. She could fire blindly with her turbolasers, and while she had taken a few potshots this time, she never felt effective. Any successful kill felt like chance, like she was rolling dice and they were all stacked against her.

It shouldn’t be this hard.

She felt more than heard the shadow that lurked behind her. She should shake it off, tear herself from the simulator’s chair and let it watch her walk away. This was not a defeat she wanted to remember or share or especially be consoled over. Even in a TIE Defender she couldn’t do much more than fire blindly and use the terrain around her mercilessly.

But she didn’t.

Long fingers curled around her shoulders, hot breath on her armor. A low murr turned into a thrumming purr as one hand slid around her to stroke at her neck. Pressure against her chair spoke of a body, a person, a monster in darkness that hadn’t frightened her in years.

She knew better than to be frightened.

“I know why you’re frussstrated…”

“Do you?” TT-1098 asked.

The voice behind her didn’t answer.

“Do you really,” she said. “We haven’t had a ship since the _Fenris_ was decommissioned. Our squad hasn’t had a mission together since Jedha. And since then? The others have duties. The others have orders. The others can’t talk to me anymore about what they’re doing. And I’m still here. And I can’t even…” She shuddered with suppressed emotion. The others were advancing and yet she couldn’t even fly in a proper battle. She was a qualled shuttle pilot but without a shuttle that didn’t mean much.

Without a shuttle it meant she didn’t have anything to do. She wore her black armor for nothing.

TT-1098 unlatched her flight harness and pulled away from phantom hands in the dark. She could almost make out the shape in the flight simulator with her, the same figure that stood silent behind her chair as she failed the TIE Defender sim. There wasn’t even enough light for his eyes to shine.

“Permission to leave the squad, sir,” she said.

The figure stood silent, cocking his head like an animal considering her. She wondered if leaving his squad would make her his prey instead. She wondered if she might deserve it.

“Permission denied.”

The lights came up and Major Armitage Hux looked almost human. His unadorned blue uniform marked him as just an officer. His deep red hair was carefully combed, its thick natural oils giving it a structure and a sheen that could almost be dismissed as pomade. His spots were pale, his eyes vivid green. But the way he moved ruined the illusion the most, a fluidity to his movements that also betrayed just how much of his uniform was padded for effect and shape.

“Why?” TT-1098 demanded.

Hux smiled, ruining the illusion of humanity. His smile was like a baring of teeth, not all of them natural and most of them inhuman. “Let me show you,” he purred.

The simulator door opened. TT-1098 pulled on her helm and followed him out into the bright and noise of Ilum.

The simulator facilities here on Ilum were a combination of refurbished Imperial parts and newer models that ran on old software. The entire complex on Ilum was like this, refurbished parts cobbled together out of junk and discards combined with unique and delicate construction that must have come from the minds of hobbyist engineers. The upper levels of the planet shivered under near constant drafts from doors left open to the elements. Heat was more constant near the geothermal plants, heat brought up from below put to work to produce a nearly constant supply of power on par with a moderately sized fusion plant.

Technicians worked down corridors, monitoring pressures and temperatures and power supplies. The constant tug of the Interdiction field at the borehole kept changing the vector and strength of gravity, making movement in the corridors treacherous. Magnetic boots kept most of the technicians in place, if not upright as gravity changed and shifted. The planet shuddered, or maybe that was TT-1098’s imagination as the sensation of direction seemed to shift.

Hux led her to a lift and then out into the upper complex. Gravity stopped changing as the artificial gravity of the upper complex overrode the vectors from both the planet and the borehole. Science labs took up much of this level, along with the planet’s hangar bays. Shuttles and transports and tugs all sat in wait, grounded until the Interdictor’s cycle ended and flights could be made safely. Pilots hung around in lounges and the mess hall, all waiting for their chance to leave, to return to their cruisers of origin.

TT-1098’s black armor turned attention to her and she didn’t like it. There were still only eight in the entire First Order who wore the black armor and it meant she garnered stares. Her pistol on one hip and knife on the other were the only weapons she carried, the only weapons she was expected to carry. She felt exposed like this. She was a good enough shot to get qualled but she certainly wasn’t TK-1959. She was practiced enough with the knife to take down a few if need be but she wasn’t an expert like SK-0331. She certainly didn’t feel worthy of the reputation of skill and prowess that the armor provided.

Hux brought her past all that to a private hangar near the top of the complex. Forcefields kept the wind at bay against the wide open hangar door. The skeleton of a ship hung suspended in midair, kept in place by repulsors that worked to regulate gravity’s hold. Strange technicians with spidery droid legs attached to their backs crawled over the floating skeleton, working and welding and building.

TT-1098 couldn’t help but stare. She’d never seen Kuati before. She’d heard of them, all pilots had, but to see them in person was strange. The technicians moved with a spidery grace, their tightly suited bodies suspended from the Ring harnesses strapped to their backs. Four droid legs extended from those Ring harnesses, legs with gripping claws on the ends that held the Kuati against the floating ship.

One Kuati climbed down, the droid legs long enough to reach the ground a good 4 meters below her without dropping her. She didn’t retract the legs, scuttling forward on them while her body hung limp from the Ring harness like a useless bulky thing.

“Dr. Myri,” Hux greeted.

Dr. Myri looked down at them with solid colored eyes, obvious droid augments, then lowered herself to the ground. The bulk of her legs made sense, a mechanical exoskeleton bracing her legs and spine and even the Ring harness on her back. Then the spider droid legs retracted, somehow telescoping in and folding up into the Ring harness.

“Dr. Myri, may I introduce my pilot, TT-1098,” Hux said, gesturing.

Dr. Myri looked TT-1098 up and down. TT-1098 squared her shoulders and pretended she hadn’t asked to be taken off the squad.

“We’re here to test the controls,” Hux said.

“At least those are finished,” Dr. Myri said, her voice oddly without inflection. “Follow me then.”

Hux pushed TT-1098 forward then followed, purring under his breath.

TT-1098 allowed herself to be shoved forward, Dr. Myri still talking in that odd flat voice. “Your Major was quite particular about the controls,” she said. “I admit, they’re not that strange. The New Republic uses controls like these. You weren’t trained by them, were you?”

“Absolutely not,” TT-1098 said, aghast at the idea.

“No? They’re much more intuitive than the Imperial controls. Either way, this makes an excellent proof-of-concept. It makes more sense to test these things before implementing them fleet-wide. It avoids a lot of potential retraining issues.” Dr. Myri extended out one droid leg and used it to pull open a flight simulator door. “Try it out. Let me know what you think.”

TT-1098 stood outside the flight simulator, unsure if she wanted to go in. How would this be any different than any other sim? Then she felt a hand at her back, a press against her armor as Hux guided her inside and then followed.

The door fell shut. A moment of darkness blinded them then it ended. Systems activated, revealing a cockpit.

TT-1098 had never seen a cockpit like this before. It was larger than the Lambda shuttle, broader though just as low. The wide transparasteel viewport shimmered with an inactive HUD across the entire pane. A blast shield sat partially lowered over the viewport, the same shimmer of inactive HUD evident on the opaque durasteel.

She looked around. The holograms mimicking the cockpit were nearly perfect, the ship coming to life around her. Minor whirrs and sounds indicated systems activating, controls turning on and engines priming even as the scene outside the ship remained flat and unrendered.

Two chairs in the cockpit faced forward, controls laid out before them in a pleasing spread interspersed with screens. Two more sat to the side, both offset from the center toward their own controls and screens. 

“Pilot, co-pilot, navigator, gunner,” Hux said, pointing out the four stations in the cockpit. “Like the Lambda it can be handled by one if needs be. But I believe you’ll find it to your liking.”

TT-1098’s gaze lingered over the controls, only snapping to Hux as she realized what he’d said. She looked out toward where she knew the simulator door to be and the ship outside then back to Hux.

Hux began to purr as he approached her. Hands curled over her shoulders as he slid behind her, gently pushing her towards the pilot’s seat. She let him push her into it. Even the chair seemed made for her as she laid her hands on the controls and they came to life.

The scene outside rendered, empty space filling the viewscreen. The HUD activated, syncing with the HUD in her helm to bombard her with information. She winced and minimized all of it, causing endless images and scrolling numbers to disappear from her HUD only to reappear on all of the tiny screens among the controls.

This was easier. She could examine each one in turn. The array of systems surprised her. The sensor suite was impressive, both active and passive. Three separate shield systems, forward and ventral and overall. Passive and active stealth, including a sensor jammer. A point defense system. Heat sinks built into the wings to allow those sensors to run for many times longer than any normal recon vessel.

Wait. Wings! TT-1098 pulled up a basic schematic of the vessel. The ship’s main HUD lit up with the basic specs of this ship. It was solid black, the same visual camouflage as the _Resurgent_ Star Destroyers. It had wings that could unfold almost level, giving the ship the ability to generate its own lift in atmosphere. Those wings folded up and in on themselves upon landing for better storage and to protect the delicate sensor systems in the wings.

It even had… TT-1098 laughed at this. It even had static discharge vanes in the wings to protect vital systems from electrical interference. Like Jedha’s storms…

As TT-1098 looked over every system one by one she felt delight rise up in her. This ship was perfect! It was perfect and exactly what she always wanted and it wasn’t a warship, it was barely armed with only two heavy laser cannons. The target lock for the lasers was right at the fingertips of her left hand, she always preferred firing weapons with the left hand and…

Delight began to turn to realization. The low purr behind her hadn’t stopped. She turned away from the controls to Major Hux behind her.

“You built this,” she said.

He didn’t deny it, though a pleased smile added to his purr.

“You built this for **me**.”

Hux put a hand on her shoulder and turned her back to the viewscreen. “It’s yours,” he agreed. “All of it.”

“Why? How?”

Hux slid his hands down her arms to the bracers of her gauntlets before placing her hands back onto the controls. Every necessary control was within reach of her hands where they sat against the flight controls. Secondary systems took up the rest of the space, unassuming when working perfectly, able to flash into her helmet’s HUD if something went wrong.

“I’ve studied how you fly,” Hux purred. “Simulator tests, flights in the field, a dozen failed attempts to qual in a battle sim. Even the TIE Defender defeats you, but it gave me the idea. Your maneuvering has improved. You’ve become one of the best evasive fliers I’ve ever seen. Why shouldn’t I give you this?”

“But what is it?” she asked. The HUD dropped the image of the ship’s schematics, instead loading an asteroid field. The ship floated in space, wings extended and sensors awake as three blips entered sensor range.

Three X-Wings.

“It’s yours,” Hux tempted. “Only yours. Built for the way you fly and fight, the way you react and respond. It is exactly what you make of it.”

The three X-Wings all began to converge on the ship. The ship’s HUD opened a window showing the three approaching ships and their speed. One achieved a target lock.

“It is only what you make of it,” Hux warned.

TT-1098 activated the sensor jammer, breaking the X-Wing’s target lock. Then she activated the engines, aiming directly for the asteroid field.

Three X-Wings floundered for a moment until she shut down the sensor jammer. The X-Wings pulled themselves together and then began to give chase.

Hux sat down in the co-pilot’s seat, content to watch the battle unfold.

It should have been one-sided. This ship was not a warship. It was a purely defensive ship with little ability to attack. Against 3 X-Wings a ship like this shouldn’t survive in level combat. Instead TT-1098 focused on the asteroids and dove in among them. She turned all but the most passive stealth off, daring the three X-Wings to come find her.

Asteroids orbited each other in their constant chaotic spirals. The broad-winged ship hugged their surfaces in shadow, the black hull of the ship robbing the X-Wings of visual contact. Red turbolaser fire peppered rocks below and around her, fragments harmlessly bouncing off of her shields as she disappeared from their sensors again.

A moment of reprieve was all she got. It was all she needed as the HUD brought up orbits and patterns in the field. TT-1098 dropped the sensor jamming and broke cover, looking to duck between two asteroids as they passed ominously close to one another. An X-Wing was careless enough to follow, colliding with one rock and destabilizing the other in a shower of stones and a burst of burning atmosphere. Another X-Wing tried to avoid the carnage, dodging the largest debris but bombarded with a hail of fragments.

TT-1098 set the target lock and fired.

Laser fire hit the X-Wing’s right dorsal engine, robbing it of some maneuvering power. But it wasn’t enough to kill it.

And there was still the third X-Wing. TT-1098 pulled up as the X-Wing behind her achieved a firing solution. She pumped the sensors, breaking his target lock and spun the ship in a hard turn. The engines stressed but she kept pushing them even as turbolaser fire depleted her shields.

Back down into the asteroid field. She activated the stealth systems, disappearing into the sensor noise of fractured stone. The engines cooled, shedding their stress as she plotted out the field’s configuration again and guessed where the X-Wings would go.

She should finish off the damaged X-Wing then go after the other. She waited for the other to fan out, searching for her, then carefully set a target lock on the damaged ship.

She fired.

It exploded in a flash of burning atmosphere then faded into vacuum.

She dropped the stealth system and taunted the remaining X-Wing into chasing her.

The X-Wing was faster but TT-1098 had the head start and the growing realization that she might win this one. She’d already taken out two X-Wings, one of them with her own weapons! And it wasn’t an accident, it wasn’t unearned. Even if it was an environmental kill.

And then everything stopped as the simulator door opened.

The holograms all shut down and TT-1098 jumped with a scream. She’d been so focused on the battle she’d forgotten this was a simulator. Major Hux stood up from the co-pilot’s seat and glared into the bright light from outside.

“Sorry to interrupt, sir, but a message has come in for you.”

Hux growled at the white-armored Stormtrooper. The Stormtrooper focused on Hux, shrinking in his armor at the Major. TT-1098 growled along with him, she was doing so well! She’d killed an X-Wing! Two of them! In a ship **built** for her! It had been glorious and now the run would be wiped from the simulator’s memory as ‘incomplete’. It would never be repeated.

“A message,” Hux hissed, teeth bared in warning.

“Yes, sir, a message,” the Stormtrooper said. “From the Supreme Leader. You are directed to contact Grand Admiral Sloane at once. Something’s happened and it requires your attention.”

All sounds coming from Hux stopped. Hux’s crest fluffed out of its carefully combed look to stand on end. “What’s happened?” he demanded. He grabbed the Stormtrooper by the breastplate and lifted, pulling the Stormtrooper into the simulator and slamming him into the wall. “What’s happened.”

“I-I don’t know!” The Stormtrooper’s voice trembled even through the vocoder and TT-1098 did not blame him. “I wasn’t told. Just that something’s happened and you’re needed for it to be dealt with.”

Hux dropped the Stormtrooper and bounded off, leaving TT-1098 behind in the flight simulator with a trembling Stormtrooper.

TT-1098 had only seen Grand Admiral Sloane once before, after their return from Praxis. She’d never forget the sight of their man-eating, spider-killing, knife-wielding Captain Hux purring in glee as the Grand Admiral grabbed him by the neck and slammed him into the deck of the _Locutor_.

And he had let her.

It wasn’t a rank thing. Nobody else in the First Order had ever dared attempt to overpower him like that. It wasn’t a rank thing when Hux took the necks of TT-1098 or any of the others. It was something else, something more primal. 

What did it mean? Who was Grand Admiral Sloane to Major Armitage Hux?

TT-1098 didn’t know yet.


	2. Promises

Hux ran through the corridors of Ilum. He gave up bipedality, instead bounding on all fours as the borehole Interdictor pulsed, stealing his balance and direction. Stormtroopers in magnetic boots held on as gravity tilted almost 90 degrees and he slammed into the wall. He growled and rolled over, getting his hands and feet towards gravity’s vector and running along the wall.

Gravity tilted again. He leapt as he felt direction change, twisting mid-leap and sliding along the floor towards the new vector. He reached out and grabbed a passing doorway, catching himself before he could fall past his destination. He climbed through the doorway and into Ilum’s main communications chamber.

The door slid closed behind him and gravity reoriented.

Vectors changed again, gravity dropping back toward the floor. Hux crouched on all fours waiting for the next shift that wouldn’t come. Instead he was safe inside the local gravity bubble.

The communications chamber was spherical, a long walkway leading to the main platform at the exact center of the sphere. There would be nothing to hold him in place should gravity change, necessitating a local artificial gravity field to keep the sphere stable.

He was safe here.

Hux stood up, rolling his right shoulder. It was sore, he must have bruised it in the sprint down here. He straightened his uniform and combed his fingers through his hair. His spots felt flushed from the exertion but there was nothing he could do about that now.

He had his orders. He had a comm to initiate.

Hux slid his code cylinder into the control panel and keyed in a frequency he remembered well.

She still used the frequency taken from the  _ Eclipse _ . 

A humanoid image appeared before him seated at what might be a desk. Her shoulder length hair hung black and shiny even in the light of the hologram. Her red eyes showed no visible iris or pupil, her skin the pale blue of a Chiss who’d spent considerable time away from Csilla.

Hux didn’t recognize this one, but then he hadn’t called in a while. He wondered how many secretaries Grand Admiral Sloane had gone through in the three years since he’d been able to speak to her. “I need to speak to Rae Sloane,” he said.

The hologram didn’t even look at him, instead keeping her eyes down at a screen on what might be a desk. Hux wondered if that explained the strange spread of detail to her hologram, the nearly undetailed desk, her lack of feet, the odd shadows where a desk-mounted camera wouldn’t reach.

“Do you have an appointment?”

An appointment? Hux bristled, his hair and crest fluffing up to ruin any attempt as looking presentable. “I was ordered by the Supreme Leader of the First Order to contact Grand Admiral Rae Sloane at once!” He growled then took a deep breath. “Tell her it’s Armitage Hux calling. Please.”

Sloane’s secretary raised an eyebrow then the hologram went dark. The connection was still active, though, active but without data moving through the open connection.

She’d put him on hold.

Hux looked at the platform where the hologram once stood, the shadowed desk with its bright blue occupant gone. But the holograms still hummed in the background, the connection still open. He’d never quite experienced anything like this before, nor did he know what to do about it.

Then it was over as a figure stepped out onto the platform. Rae Sloane’s hologram wavered with latency issues, the chaotic hyperspace routes through the Unknown Regions making connection with Csilla tenuous at the best of times. This was not the best of times.

Hux purred as she stepped into sight. Her white uniform shone in the hologram. Time lag and a low bitrate removed a decade of age from her skin but it couldn’t steal the gray hairs she had earned. Her posture was perfect as always, her eyes hard as she looked at the spot where she knew Hux to be on his own end of the holocomm.

“Armitage,” she greeted.

Hux’s ears pricked. She looked well but she sounded tired.

“I hear congratulations are in order,” she said. “I know you will use the opportunities presented to you.”

Something was wrong. “Grand Admiral?” he asked.

“Imagine my surprise when I hear you already have,” Sloane said, her expression changing to something carefully neutral.

Hux’s purr faded and his crest fluffed as he felt a chill rise up his spine. “What have you heard?”

Sloane looked away, down at one hand while she picked at her own nails. She took a deep breath then focused again on where Hux would be standing. Except he didn’t feel like she was looking at him anymore, she was looking past him to something distant, something else. He did not like the feeling at all.

“When the galaxy rejected us we fled to the Unknown Regions,” Sloane began. “You remember that time, Armitage. Convoying from system to system, every microjump a calculated risk. Scout vessels disappearing into the Void and bringing back new terrors. Sometimes they never came back. And then we made contact with the Chiss.”

Hux remembered that time. He was a child and thus Stormtroopers tried to confine him and his army to the creche of the  _ Eclipse _ . But he quickly learned his way around, how to piece together disparate information, how to sneak through the ship unseen, and how to fear the darkness Outside.

“The Ascendency had rules we were to follow,” Sloane continued. “We are still bound by many of those rules. Among them was a ban on superweapons.”

Hux felt his blood run cold as his crest dropped.

“At first it was only rumor,” Sloane said almost conversationally. “I dismissed them as rumor, nothing more. Of course the First Order wouldn’t violate a promise given to the Ascendency. I gave my word to the Syndicure that the First Order would never break a vow like that.” 

Hux dropped to his knees. His hands splayed on the floor as he looked up and whined. This couldn’t be happening.

“And now I know better,” Sloane said, still gazing past where Hux would be if he stood. She glanced down as the image on her end updated but her gaze returned to a dismissive glare into space. “It was never just rumor. Like the Empire before it, the First Order does break its promises. Worse, I wasn’t told. I wasn’t consulted. I wasn’t warned. I had to be informed by an Aristocra’s  _ secretary _ that the First Order is building a superweapon. That  **you** are it’s architect.”

Only now did she look down at Hux where he keened, teeth clicking and hands scrabbling at the smooth floor. “You made me a liar to the Ascendency. Without consulting me. Without any regard for what it might do or mean. You didn’t even warn me. Armitage, you couldn’t tell me yourself?”

This had to be a nightmare. Hux hadn’t seen her this angry since Brendol stripped his name and tossed him into the cadre. Rae Sloane’s fury was always terrible to behold, beautiful anger turned to fire or ice depending on which weapon would suit the situation best. Right now the full power of that fury was directed at him and he knew he deserved it. But he hadn’t known! At no point as an officer in the First Order had he been told of a ban on superweapons. The Supreme Leader never stopped him, never even warned him that the First Order was honor-bound by contract with the Ascendency! He hadn’t known…

...and that was no excuse. He rolled over on the floor, baring his neck in a desperate attempt to atone. It wouldn’t work, he knew, not anymore, and she looked away from his display to stare back at the spot where he would be if he were standing.

At the spot where he would be if he were human.

“Your father tried to warn me about you, Armitage,” she said. “Even as a child. He told me then you’d never feel love or loyalty, that your ‘kind’ weren’t capable of it. Like any wild beast, the moment you were allowed to taste freedom you’d never be satisfied again.”

“That’s not true!” Hux refused to believe it was a scream. He couldn’t believe any of this was happening. He’d done this, he’d broken so much more than just Ilum.

He was exactly the monster Brendol always said he’d become.

“I can’t believe that,” Sloane said. “For my sake or yours.” She took a deep breath, hands going behind her back in a formal stance. “The Supreme Leader has my resignation and my reasoning. If I am forced to hear about your exploits from third hand sources then I have to assume I can no longer represent the First Order’s interests to the Ascendency.”

“What are you going to do now?” Hux asked.

He never got an answer. Instead Sloane glanced off to the side, a prearranged signal, and the holograms went dark. The comm closed, shut down on Csilla’s end.

Hux knelt on the floor of the communications chamber. This had to be a nightmare. Even if it were real he couldn’t think of a worse reality. When  **had** he last contacted Rae Sloane? When had he last heard her voice? After Praxis? Ilum had been barely a glimmer of thought in the back of his mind, nothing worth bringing up in conversation. But that was three years ago, an eternity of work and missions and planning and he’d been busy. He’d been busy controlling the Ilum project and training his Hounds and conspiring with Phasma and…

...and he should have found the time. He  **knew** this was what Sloane did with her time, he  **knew** the pitfalls of dealing with the Ascendency, he should have  **known** about the moratorium on superweapons. He should have had the presence of mind to ask.

But everything he did came with the Supreme Leader’s approval. Every progress report, every plan, every errant fantasy pulled from his head without permission was approved. The Supreme Leader surely knew of this moratorium and yet…

And yet…

Cold terror turned hot as he realized what must have happened.

Impulse had him keying in a new holocomm, demanding an audience with the one who had caused all of this.

He was surprised when the comm went through, connecting him to the heart of the  _ Kraken _ . The Supreme Leader’s amused face filled the chamber, his impossibly tall image seated in a temporary throne. “My beautiful hound,” Snoke crooned.

Hux felt his blood run cold as he looked up into the image that filled the comm sphere. Anger warred underneath the cold wash of the Supreme Leader’s attention, a low hissing growl under his breath that he couldn’t control.

“You’ve done well, Major,” Snoke praised. “The former Grand Admiral has admitted more to you than she would anyone else. My compliments in enticing her to speak.”

The low growl grew, turning into a full snarl as he bared teeth and hissed, crest flared and spots flushing. Cold fingers in his mind caressed him in obscene ways that had nothing and everything to do with the mental image of tearing Snoke’s throat from his neck. What color would his blood be…

Cold turned to ice as Snoke reached out with one holographic hand, a finger raised as if scolding a naughty child. The thought of killing Snoke solidified and then changed, the ruined creature laughing in glee. The image faded after a moment, an eternity, but the laugh remained. Or maybe the laugh was real. Hux couldn’t tell anymore.

Awareness returned to Hux as he knelt on the floor of the communications chamber. Lights around him told him the holocomm was still active. He had the Supreme Leader’s attention, Sloane was in danger because of him, he had to do  **something** .

“I seek permission to travel to Csilla!” Hux shouted.

Snoke's amused chuckle hadn’t been a figment of his imagination. “Why?” he asked.

Hux’s mind raced in desperate circles, leaping from logic to hope to conjecture. The alliance with the Chiss Ascendency was old, decades old by this point. They were the oldest and surest ally the First Order had. Both had relied upon each other in their times of need, from the Grysk invasion of the Empire to the Chiss Civil War to incursions from other horrors on both sides. To toss away such an alliance made no sense.

Hux hadn’t known about the moratorium against superweapons. Had he known he might have used Ilum differently, he might have given the First Order a homeworld instead of a weapon. Instead the Supreme Leader allowed him to run wild, tearing through rules and sanity like a monster. Clearly the Supreme Leader was willing to toss Sloane to the Chiss as an apology.

Hux was not. If anyone had to atone for his crimes it would be him.

“The Chiss Ascendency is one of the First Order’s oldest allies,” Hux said. “This alliance predates the fall of the Empire. I would not see this alliance fall.”

“Perhaps the former Grand Admiral can still salvage it,” Snoke mocked.

Hux shook his head. “Not anymore,” he said. “Through no fault of her own. Somehow the Chiss became aware of Ilum’s purpose. Rae Sloane will be branded a liar in the Aristocra’s eyes. The First Order will lose its greatest and oldest ally unless we can appease them. Quickly.”

“So she appeases them.”

Hux growled under his breath, looking up to stare a silent challenge at the hologram that still smirked in amusement. “You gave Ilum to me,” he said. “It became mine to do with as I wish. Until such a time as you take it from me, I am responsible. I must be the one to appease or there will be no appeasement.”

“And if I take it from you?”

Hux allowed himself a smile with teeth bared. “Then the responsibility becomes yours,” he said.

Snoke’s amusement faltered as Hux dared to speak to him like this. Hux braced for the sweep off his feet and the slam to the platform but neither came. Instead Snoke seemed to be considering his demand.

There was so much at stake here. As of right now the First Order was little more than a network of droid-run Star Destroyers and three Resurgents. Ilum represented the center of power, if only because the  _ Kraken _ oversaw construction of the shipyards and the growing dreadnought. Nine systems belonged to the First Order, though a dozen more offered tithes in exchange for protection. Meanwhile Csilla reeled from civil war, its own empire recovering from the machinations of the Grysk. Those same Grysk could take everything from the First Order if allowed.

Hux would not see it all fall apart because of something he had done.

“Very well then,” Snoke allowed. “You have your project ship. Complete it. Take your Hounds and--”

“No!” Hux shouted. He braced himself for the Supreme Leader’s ire at being interrupted but it never came. Instead the words fell out of him in a rush. “The ship isn’t ready. The open hyperspace lanes will take too long to navigate. We don’t have time! If I’m to have any chance at salvaging the situation I can’t wait that long. I need to go now and I need to take the direct route. Through the Maze.”

Hux shuddered at the thought. He’d only been through the Maze once and it left him with nightmares for months. But the alternative was roundabout, meandering hyperspace routes that added a week to the travel time. He wasn’t sure he had a week. He wasn’t sure Sloane had a week. If he would appease the Aristocra then he would have to do it soon, before they made a decision concerning the First Order’s trustworthiness.

“There is only one way through the Maze to Csilla,” Snoke warned.

“I am aware,” Hux said.

He could hear the smile on Snoke’s face. “Good,” he crooned. “Prepare yourself and any you will to take with you. You will be Attended.”

The sphere went dark.

Hux only then realized he was still kneeling on the platform of the communications chamber. It all felt so surreal. He was about to brave the Maze at the claws of an Attendant in order to reach Csilla in time to, to what? To make a difference? In all likelihood Sloane would punch him, break his nose like she had his father so many times. If she spoke to him at all. She might refuse his presence, the Chiss might banish them all.

But he had to try.

There had to be a way to salvage this.


End file.
